When I first began thinking about blogs in the classroom I wasn't sure that I could apply it to many areas outside of work like journaling such as is done in writing or reading workshop. When I began exploring sites online to help me generate ideas I could see that a blog isn't just an online notebook that people could comment on. That is an important function of blogs, but in the beginning this was all I could think of as an application to the classroom. After reading through some of the 50 best blogs, I realized that blogs are now a multimedia form of communication. (Perhaps they always were and I was just clueless!). All this said, there are many applications in the area of writing throughout the content
Community Based Unit Project
Completing a unit project in social studies or civics could be supported with essays about a particular point of view, for example, that there is a schism in a city across classes that is more along lines of educational achievement than income. The student could embed graphs, audios and or videos of interviews with individuals who play important roles in the topic. Having the opportunity for community comments would be an interesting challenge for the student writers to make decisions on how to sort comments, who will be invited to make comments in order to add differing perspectives that give stronger feedback and provide a deeper understanding of the topic as it relates to the challenge of real world.
Oral Reading Practice
Another use for blogs in the classroom is for younger readers who are struggling with fluency, with a lack of confidence in their own reading skills, can read books, poems, stories aloud fluently (after repeated practice) that can be enjoyed by their assigned buddy in a
younger class, or parents, grandparents!
Online Book Club
A blog could also be a terrific way to hold a book club for students in which they could practice using the reading comprehension strategies of questioning, monitoring etc. With the support of a small group of partners who are working together to read deeply a shared novel.
So many ideas out there! Now if the firewalls come down - we are in business!
